


Every Night, Forever

by jujubiest



Series: Prayers [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/544813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even when he got Cas back, Dean never quite lost that habit of praying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Night, Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for season eight. Sexuality but no actual smut. Final part of the "Prayers" series. I just couldn't leave it where "And Every Night After" left off.

It's Castiel's first night back on Earth, and he's reveling in running water, real soap, being safe enough to stay in one place for longer than three minutes, when he hears it.

 _Castiel. Cas._  It's Dean's voice in his head, the tenor of which he knows better than his own by now. It feels tired, but relieved, glad. Castiel understands.

 _I told you I'd get us home,_  he thinks smugly, and Castiel rolls his eyes, opting to ignore Dean and pay attention to his shower if the man is going to be obnoxious. But Dean is still praying, and Castiel is still angel enough that he feels the need to listen.

 _There were some days I didn't think we'd make it,_  he confesses, the thought small and carrying an echo of his fear of failure with it.  _Even when I found a way to get back in, I didn't know if I'd be able to find you and get you out. I didn't even know if you'd…still be there._

It amazes Castiel how human beings can be so evasive even in their own minds. Dean was afraid he'd break into Purgatory only to find that he, Castiel, was already dead. But he doesn't pray those words, and by now Castiel has lived among humans long enough to understand why. Death is a constant threat to human beings, and it carries with it the added fear, at least for Dean, of knowing exactly what's waiting after. Castiel will take the oblivion that awaits him, should he ever die, over the way he knows Dean feels about spending eternity alone in Heaven.

 _I can't tell you how good it was to see you again,_  Dean prays softly.  _Man, you looked rough._  The thought carries a chuckle with it, and Castiel has to huff a little laugh himself. Leave it to Dean to get right to the heart of the matter.

 _I missed you, Cas. So much. If you ever tell Sam I'll deny the crap out of it, but I did_. Another ripple of laughter down the line, followed by something that feels like a sigh.  _Honestly, man, I kinda don't want to let you out of my sight right now._

Castiel finishes his shower quickly, towels off, and slips into the sweatpants and t-shirt that Dean left folded on the edge of the sink for him. He slips out of the bathroom as quietly as possible and makes a beeline for Dean's bed, instead of his own. He climbs in without preamble, fitting his body in the space beside Dean's and turning to stare through the darkness at a pair of wide, confused green eyes set in a flustered face.

"Cas? What—"

"Perhaps," Castiel says softly, although there's no reason to whisper; Sam's in the room next door. "I also don't want to let you out of my sight."

Dean sighs and Castiel feels the tension drain out of him with that breath. It doesn't return when he slides closer, curling himself into Dean's chest and worming a cold foot between Dean's bare calves. Dean yelps at the cold and then Castiel can feel him glaring through the dark, and he can't help but laugh.

"You're a dick," Dean says without heat. "A dick with icicle feat. C'mere." And he wraps warm arms around Castiel's shoulders, pulls him in closer and rests his forehead against Castiel's hair, breathing him in and holding him tight.

 _Just so you know,_  Dean prays,  _you are not allowed to use my legs as a foot warmer every night._

Castiel chuckles.

"We shall see," he mumbles into Dean's chest, and then they sleep.

* * *

_Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray to Castiel to get the fuck over here and snuggle me._

There are things Dean would rather die than say aloud, but that's the beauty of prayer, he's discovered: they don't have to be out loud at all, so no one ever has to know but him and Cas.

Of course, Cas is developing a bitchface almost as obnoxious as Sam's, so maybe Dean should rethink the expediency of this arrangement.

"Dean," he says grumpily, "I am trying to read."

 _You like your book more than you like me?_  Dean pouts silently, and Castiel sighs and puts his book aside. He stands and crosses the room in a few measured steps, staring impassively down at Dean with his arms at his sides. Dean is struck anew by how graceful he seems without that bulky trench coat, even when he's motionless.

"My book is less demanding," Castiel says noncommittally. Dean just grins up at him, guileless and sweet and utterly bullshit, because what Castiel hears is  _Yeah, but unlike your book I give as good as I get._

Castiel is on him then, clinging with his legs and mapping with his hands, undressing him methodically as he growls in Dean's ear, voice low with an odd mixture of lust and exasperation.

"I will never understand how you manage to make even prayer a profane act, Dean." The words vibrate against Dean's skin and make him shiver, full-bodied. He pulls back and relishes the feeling of Castiel's hands carding through his hair as he sends his answer:  _At least it's a gentle sin?_

Castiel's hands freeze.

"Dean…when did you read Shakespeare?" Dean chuckles and rolls his eyes.

"Dude…I went to high school like everybody. More of 'em than most people, but still…I've read a few books, I'm not an idiot."

"Oh," Castiel says softly, "I've never thought you were unintelligent. Just less informed on literature, and less interested."

 _When do I get to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss?_  Dean prays, waggling his eyebrows at the angel wrapped around him. Said angel tries to groan, but it's half fondness and at least forty percent laughter, so the effect is lost.

"I sincerely hope we are not Romeo and Julie—mmph." Castiel's words are cut off by Dean's mouth sealing itself against his, and he gives off teasing Dean for the moment in favor of something he enjoys much more.

* * *

"Guys, you need to stop."

Castiel and Dean look at Sam with almost identical expressions of confusion on their faces, and he groans.

"Seriously, stop! This mind meld thing you've got going on is seriously starting to freak me the hell out."

 _Wuh-oh,_  Dean's thought flashes into Cas's mind, gleeful and teasing _. Sounds like Sammy's still got some residual jealousy when it comes to our profound bond, Cas._

"Residual?" Cas raises an eyebrow. Dean smirks. Sam just groans again.

"Oh my GOD. You're still doing it!"

Dean can only shrug, unconcerned, but Castiel is suddenly curious.

"Sam…I wonder. I don't read Dean's mind, you understand. I get the thoughts he sends to me. I assumed they were prayers, but you seem to think it has something specifically to do with Dean. Could you try to send me a thought?"

Sam gives him an incredulous look.

"You're kidding, right? I've been screaming at you in my head all day to shut your freaking boyfriend up before I drown him in his own coffee."

Dean chokes a little at the word "boyfriend," and Sam gives him a look that can only be described as vindicated.

"Karma," he says tersely.

"You're…Karma," Dean returns, still looking thrown. Sam and Cas roll their eyes almost in unison before Sam goes back to his laptop, muttering something about stupid angels and their taboo relationships with freaky fringe benefits, emphasis on the fringe. Castiel turns to Dean, looking pensive and slightly troubled.

_Dude…you okay?_

Castiel nods. Then Dean feels a sudden flash of something, like a split-second headache. It's gone before he can even register it, but something must have shown on his face, because Castiel's eyebrows drawing together, and his eyes look suddenly…hopeful?

"Dean?"

"What…" He stops, glances at Sam, who's still pointedly ignoring them.

 _What_ was _that, Cas?_

"That was…hm." He screws his face up in concentration.

Suddenly there's a voice in Dean's head, still and resonant, and it calms him to his core just to hear it.

_That was me trying to talk to you the way you always talk to me._

Dean just stares at Cas across the table, eyes wide.

_Holy crap._

* * *

They do research, and Sam makes cracks about their "love connection," as he likes to call it. Castiel worries that this is some side effect, an omen or portent or part of some long-forgotten prophecy, because angels and humans simply  _do not_  form mental links like this.

 _Yeah, well…we do a lot of things angels and humans aren't supposed to together,_  Dean thinks at him, and Castiel wishes Dean could be as stoic about his thoughts as he is about actually voicing his emotions, because the leering quality of that comment makes him blush scarlet.

 _Please try to think with your upstairs brain, Dean,_ he thinks back severely. He used to be confused when Sam would chastise Dean for thinking with the wrong brain, because everything he knew about human physiology said they only possessed one center of cognition. He is supremely thankful to the creator of Google, because he doesn't want to contemplate the face Dean would have made if he'd asked what a "downstairs brain" was.

For his part, Dean seems wholly unconcerned, and it bothers Castiel to no end. He quickly discovers that the only thing harder than getting Dean to talk when he doesn't want to is getting him to pray—they still call it that, whatever it actually is—when he doesn't want to.

 _Dean, please…you don't have to talk to Sam about this, because he_ is  _being rather insufferable, but I'm worried and this concerns me too…and you've always been able to talk to me._

 _Yeah, well,_  Dean thinks petulantly.  _You were never so freakin' pushy about it before now._

 _Dean…_  he doesn't mean for that thought to feel quite so wounded, but he sees Dean wince across the room before turning to give him an apologetic look.

 _Cas…dammit…okay._  He jerks his head towards the motel room door.  _Let's…go talk._  Sam is absorbed in some ancient book of angel lore on the other side of the room, pointedly ignoring the silent exchange as best he can, but Dean still feels eavesdropped on and it's making him testy. Castiel follows him willingly enough, and when they're seated side by side in the Impala, Castiel angles his body to the left and looks expectant. Dean sighs.

"First of all, man? I miss your voice. We should talk out loud more often."

"Oh." Clearly, that's not something Castiel expected him to say.

"Secondly, I…okay, I know it's weird, and I know it doesn't jive with anything we know about people or angels, but…"

"But?" Castiel encourages, when Dean doesn't go on after a full minute. Dean sighs again and turns in his seat, leaning in close so their shoulders are almost touching, head bent to stare at where their fingers are just millimeters apart on the seat.

"I like being able to talk to each other the way we do, okay? I…" he lapses into prayer and the words start pouring into Castiel's head, unfettered.

_I like being connected to you like this. I like being able to tell you everything, all the stuff I never talk about. I like knowing no matter where we are, no matter how far apart we are, that we can still reach each other. I mean, fucking hell Cas, you were in another dimension, and you could still hear me! I wish to God I could've heard you that whole time, at least to know for sure that you...that you weren't…_

_Shhhh._  Castiel nudges reassurance into Dean's mind, and it mirrors the arms that wrap around him, the hands that twine in his hair and brush over his forehead. Dean goes willingly into the embrace, despite the fact they're in a parked car where anyone could walk by and see.

 _I understand,_  he thinks at Dean, pressing lips to his hair.  _I enjoy being connected to you this way. I would not want to lose it._

 _So let's not lose it,_  Dean thinks, an edge of hopeful wheedling to his tone. Castiel smiles, laughs into his hair.

_I promise that no matter what happens, you won't lose me._

* * *

Sometimes, having someone who can talk to him without speaking and hear his thoughts in return is really freaking annoying.

Most of the time, though, it comes in handy. In fact, Dean can think of more than one occasion when a hunt might've gone south if he hadn't been able to talk to Cas in his head.

Once or twice it almost got them both killed, because when Castiel goes suddenly, deathly silent in the middle of a sentence how is Dean  _not_  going to drop everything and run in, half-crazed and distracted with worry, to rescue him?

But they survived that, and things are settling. After months of searching they've found no prophecy and encountered nothing more dire than the usual…their usual circa 2005 or 2006, mind you. Slash and burns, Crowley, monsters. Life is getting back to the Winchester version of normal, except now Dean's not alone in his head all the time.

Eventually Sam starts to relax, although he never gets tired of making jokes about his brand new gay brother. Dean was ruffled by that at first, stomping and snorting like an angry bull with no effect whatsoever, but finally Castiel pointed out that Sam just likes having something on Dean after years of being the butt of jokes about his hair and eating habits. Lately Dean uses a slightly different tactic to get Sam to shut the hell up.

"Jesus, Cas, how do you concentrate with that in your head all the time? I can barely think with all these love vibrations in the room." They're supposed to be researching their latest case, but Dean's been too busy making goo-goo eyes at Cas all afternoon, and it's finally gotten on Sam's last nerve. Unfortunately Dean seems unfazed by Sam's outburst for a change.

"Sorry, Sammy," he says, face a picture of remorse. "It's just…sometimes when Cas here is all unbuttoned and casual and deep in thought like that I can't control my thoughts too well, y'know?"

"Dean—" Cas starts to scold him for teasing his brother and then stops abruptly as a wave of emotions and images sweeps over him, so potent and real that he has to bite back a groan. The sheer amount of  _lust_ in Dean's thoughts almost bowls him over, and he puts a hand up to loosen his collar in a vain attempt to relieve the sudden flash of heat washing over his body. He shoots a glare at Dean, who's grinning at him like the cat that caught the canary.

"Y'alright there, Cas?"

"Dean…" Cas chokes out, voice low and husky, and Sam looks between his smirking brother and the blushing angel for about ten seconds before he catches on, and his face screws up in mortified disgust.

"Oh, man…gross! Get a room."

"Hey," Dean says with an evil grin. "You brought it up."

Of course, they don't get any more work done that day, because Castiel suddenly feels the need to grant Sam's request by dragging Dean into the other room and locking the door.

* * *

As it turns out, not all of Dean's prayers are profane.

They're tangled in skin-warm sheets, legs entwined below and Castiel's head on Dean's chest, listening to the steady, comforting thump of his heartbeat, when something small and soft whispers its way into his brain.

_I love you._

"Dean?" Castiel tries to raise his head to see Dean's face, but arms tighten around him and hold him there. He hears Dean's heart quicken its beating.

_I'm not the guy who just comes out and professes things and I know you know me pretty well, but…I wanted to make sure you know. I do. I love you._

It's stronger this time, less timid, and Castiel grips that thought with every ounce of mental power he has, feels it out and savors the emotions that come with it, most of them familiar but softer around the edges, and a few of them brand-new and fragile, more fragile than anything he would have expected to hear from Dean in a lifetime.

He sighs contentedly into Dean's chest, bringing one arm up to let his fingers card into the short hair at the back of his head. On an impulse he slides his fingers up to cover the place on Dean's arm where his mark used to stand out, a bright, angry red, and grips as tight as he dares. He sends Dean his own thought then.

Castiel knows about shyness, uncertainty, and vulnerability, but if there was anything timid left in him it was burned and beaten out of him in Purgatory, and so the emotions that hit Dean are not small, and they aren't soft or quiet.

Dean gasps, his mind suddenly filled with an overwhelming cacophony of more than he thought a single entity could feel. He knows the  _awe_ of Castiel's first moment standing before him, the  _horror_  of doubts creeping in at the edges of a certainty that's as old as the Earth or older, the  _ache_  of wanting sharpened to a knife's edge of need because the person feeling it has never wanted anything before, the serenity of purpose that comes with making a first decision and knowing its right, the unadulterated agony of realizing, too late, that the last decision you made was wrong. Then there's a long, yawning stretch that's a cross between the sobbing of a terrified child and a dying man screaming  _no_ , and it's  _emptiness_ , it's  _loss_ , it's the most horrible thing Dean's ever felt in his life, and he knows there are tears streaming down his face in the same detached way he knows that these are all the things Castiel has ever felt for him, or for lack of him.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, the never-ending, helpless scream quiets, and in steals something brand-new and shivering, glass-thin but growing stronger by the minute. Dean has a second to kid himself that it's simple hope or happiness before it explodes over him, and it's  _love_ , it's blinding, limitless, fill-you-to-the-brim-and-drown-you-in-it love, and there's happiness and hope in it but they're only a part, afloat in a sea that could put out the sun and have room to spare, warm, liquid clarity, the kind of love that comes from a creature never built for emotions who stumbled onto them and doesn't know yet how to lock them away or tamp them down, how to keep them at a distance so they don't sting quite so sharply.

Dean is shaking with the force of what Castiel feels for him, his arms and legs wrapped around his lover so tight it ought to hurt, but it doesn't, and Dean hopes Castiel never learns how to toss his emotions to the wayside the way humans have evolved to do. He regrets, as bitterly as he's ever regretted anything, that he's one such evolved human, because in return for this, this boundless luminescent  _thing_  Castiel feels for him, he can only give a quiet echo of what he knows the angel deserves.

 _Shhh,_ Castiel tells him, and he realizes he's been sending his reactions back to Castiel.  _Don't be ridiculous, Dean._  The thought is fond and sweet, feels like a cool hand on his forehead, and he sinks into it, cocoons himself in it until he feels as safe as he's ever going to feel, and he says it again, puts as much of himself as he can into it this time, all the intensity and the fear-lust-joy and the constant ache of protective worry that makes him want to never let Castiel leave his side. It's not enough, but he tries.

_I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you I love you I love you loveyouloveyouloveyou—_

Castiel is soothing him again, shushing him and holding him, body and mind and soul.  _I know, Dean, I know. It's okay. I don't doubt you. I know._

They fall asleep like that, sealed together with their thoughts playing in each other's heads on a loop.

When Dean wakes, the first thing he hears is Castiel's voice.

"Dean," he asks softly, voice a little muffled by the skin of Dean's chest, "Did you ever read the Bible as a child?" Dean snorts.

"Not really. Wasn't good any good for researching demons, and it wasn't like we were brought up in church. Why? Thought you said the Bible gets tons of stuff wrong."

"It does," Castiel accedes, "But there's wisdom to be had there, all the same. Particularly in the teachings of Jesus."

"Yeah, about that. Was he really some crazy powerful prophet or Son of God or whatever?" Castiel extracts himself from Dean's arms sufficiently to look at him then, and there's a playful glint in his eyes when he answers, just the barest hint of an upward curve on his lips.

"Ah. I believe the saying is, 'that would be telling.'"

Dean rolls his eyes and crushes Castiel to him again, eliciting a soft  _oomph_  from the angel and counting it a small victory.

"Cryptic bastard. Anyway…what brought this on?"

"There's a story," Castiel says, settling back into Dean's arms more comfortably and resting his cheek on the warm expanse of skin just below Dean's anti-possession tattoo. "I wondered if you had heard it."

"What story?" Dean asks, voice soft and a little husky with sleep and something else, fingers playing idly with strands of Castiel's dark hair.

"One day as Jesus was preaching in the temple, and while he was being questioned by those in the church who wanted to discredit him, he saw people coming in to give offerings to the temple treasury. He watched as rich men and women gave extravagant offerings, but it was the contribution of two mites—pennies, I suppose would be the modern-day equivalent—from an impoverished widow that caught his attention. 'Truly I say unto you,' he said, 'that this poor widow has put in more than all.'"

"Okay," Dean interrupts. "First of all, 'truly I say unto you?' Who talks like that? And seriously? How can two pennies be more than, like, a huge sack of gold from some rich guy?"

"But it was," Castiel says, a firm note to his voice that Dean doesn't understand. "You see, Dean, all of those rich men and women gave more money to the church because they had money to spare. It didn't inconvenience them to give; it wasn't a hardship for them in any way and it didn't mean anything. But that widow gave everything she had."

Dean is quiet for a long moment, his hand moving up and down over Castiel's spine in a light, pensive caress, and Castiel can almost hear the gears in his head turning.

"Okay, Cas," he says finally. "I think I see your point."

"Do you," Castiel deadpans, unconvinced.

"Yeah," Dean chuckles. "I'm a widow woman with two pennies."

Suddenly Castiel is in his face, blue eyes inches from his own, voice rough and breathing warm against his lips as he whispers fervent, urgent words and wills Dean to understand.

"No, Dean. Please do not make light of this. You are someone who finds loving others easy, but admitting it a very difficult and fearful thing. And yet you tell me anyway, just to make sure I know, and then worry it isn't enough when it is everything,  _everything_  to me."

 _Cas._  Dean looks up at him with wide eyes, that tight, desperate feeling in his chest he associates with his heart about to burst from feeling too many things and never giving voice to any of them.

_Please believe me when I say that if God appeared this moment and offered me anything I wanted in the universe, I would tell him to go back into hiding because there's nothing he can give me that will outweigh the value of what I already have._

"Jesus, Cas," Dean gasps at him, sliding arms up around his waist and pulling him down, as much as to alleviate that ache in his chest as to escape those ethereal blue eyes boring into him with a furious kind of devotion.

 _Okay, okay,_  he thinks, all protests floundering.  _I get it. I understand._

And then, because he has no words for the things he feels, the things he wants Cas to  _know_ he feels, he closes his eyes and prays.

**Author's Note:**

> The story of the widow's two mites is paraphrased from Luke 21: 1-4. I thought perhaps Castiel would prefer that version, since he seems to have met Luke at some point.


End file.
